Entertainment

Google to Twitter: Will You Please, Please Be Our Friend?

In all the hubbub about the possibility of Google acquiring Twitter, and Twitter's real-time search being superior to Google's search in some aspects, one thing is often forgotten: Google doesn't have to buy Twitter; it can partner with them and perhaps index their search results. It's slightly odd, however, that Google is now very openly talking about that possibility - and their own shortcomings.

Speaking after the annual Google Zeitgeist conference, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told reporters that Google doesn't have to "buy everyone to work with them." True, but then they won't own this area of search, and as much as Google denies a monopolist's appetite, it's in the blood of every company to try to corner the market from as many sides as possible.

Schmidt also confirmed that, bluntly put, Google currently sucks at real-time search. "Google has done a relatively poor job of creating things that work on a per second basis,” he said, adding “people really want to do stuff in real-time and they [Twitter] have done a great job about it... We will do a good job of things now we have these examples.”

This is the second such admission coming from Google's brass in as little as one day. Loic Le Meur wrote yesterday that he had asked Larry Page what he thinks about Twitter, to which Page replied: "I have always thought we needed to index the Web every second to allow real time search. At first, my team laughed and did not believe me. Now they know they have to do it. Not everybody needs sub-second indexing but people are getting pretty excited about realtime."

Things move fast today, much faster than when Google came to be a decade ago. Once seemingly untouchable as far as search goes, the biggest internet giant now readily admits that they're a) not very good at real-time search, and b) the competition is doing it better. Meanwhile, the folks at Twitter have worn out their suits from all the patting on each other's backs.

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